Skip to Content

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Map of the world

Turning TSA-confiscated scissors into art

By now, we all know that the TSA has the authority to confiscate obviously dangerous items-- fully-gassed chainsaws, butcher's knives, four-ounce bottles of lotion. But Reason magazine has the story of what happens to some of those items that fall in that ambiguous, in-between area of what is acceptable:

"When it comes to knives and scissors, items with blades shorter than four inches are supposed to be allowed, but individual agents have wide discretion to ban anything they feel might present a safety threat. As a result, there are thousands of ostensibly OK scissors that end up in the TSA equivalent of Gitmo."

In a courageous act of defiance, or protest (or something), one man fashions those would-be "weapons" into works of art.

"The D.C.-based artist Christopher Locke buys confiscated scissors that belong in the "grey area between what should be allowed on the plane, and what wasn't allowed" and re­fashions them into strangely disquieting spiders and bugs, viewable online at heartlessmachine.com."

Check out Locke's gallery of scissor-spiders here.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, United States, Airports

Search Travel Deals

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Gadling Features




Categories

Become our Fan on Facebook!

Gadling on Facebook

Tickets, travel guides, hotels & more

Featured Galleries (view all)

Dim Sum Dialogues: Bangkok
Queenstown, NZ
Dim Sum Dialogues: Kowloon Walled City
Fox Glacier
TranzAlpine Railway
In & Around Auckland
Air New Zealand Matchmaking Flight
Bungle Bungle Range
Home Valley Station

Sponsored Links

Autoblog Green

Daily Finance

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Luxist

Switched.com

FanHouse

WoW